Palestinian activists renew push to end US aid to Israel
Palestinian rights advocates in the United States have renewed their calls for an end to unconditional US military aid to Israel, condemning a recent visit to the US capital by Israeli minister of military affairs Benny Gantz.
US Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters last week that Israel would be requesting $1 billion to “replenish” its Iron Dome missile interception system, as well as buy munitions for the Israeli air force, following 11 days of Israel’s brutal bombardment of Palestinians in the besieged the Gaza Strip.
According to the report, the key objective of Gantz’s latest visit to Washington was securing the American funding of the regime’s anti-air system, which only succeeded in intercepting just a fraction of hundreds of rockets launched by the Gaza-based fighters of the Hamas Islamic resistance movement.
Israel’s latest war on Gaza, however, has also exposed an emerging rift with US President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party, as progressive legislators and activists demanded a cease-fire from the Israeli regime as the Palestinian death toll surged during the massive bombardment against the densely populated Gaza.
The Zionist regime launched the bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip on May 10, following Palestinian retaliation against violent raids on worshipers at al-Aqsa Mosque and the regime’s plans to force a number of Palestinian families out of their homes at the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem al-Quds.
Apparently caught off guard by the unprecedented barrage of rockets from Gaza, Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire on May 21, which Palestinian resistance movements accepted with Egyptian mediation.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 260 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive, including 66 children, 40 women and 16 elderly while 1,948 others were wounded.
US military aid to Israel has skyrocketed over the past several years while the regime’s forces are engaged in blatant human rights violations against Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere.
The United States and Israel signed an agreement in September 2016 to give Israel $38 billion in military assistance over 10 years, the largest such aid package in US history.
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